saturday night, the los angeles permaculture guild and saje hosted a slide show by mark lakeman, founder of portland's city repair project. my partner in crime for the evening was geofrey collins (architect and founder of sco studio in venice). we had both seen mark's slideshow before, but we heard that there'd be booze and other local permies there...so we were of course sold.
city repair is a multi-disciplinary, non-profit organization which works with communities to recreate the infrastructure of the public commons where people live. some of the projects that mark highlights are the conversions of street intersections into public squares, or organizing other forms of permanent or ephemeral place interventions. city repair is effectively engaging citizens in the reinvention of the public landscape using natural building and permaculture techniques.
city repair also hosts the village building convergence, a 10-day event held every may in portland where citizens, natural builders and activists come together to help neighborhoods design and build their own community amenities. 
after the lecture, everyone hung out on the sidewalk outside (realize that this is right downtown in the most industrial section of el lay...not a spec of green to be seen). ray brought his amazing rocket stove/oven (pictured to the right) which proved to be the hit of the afterparty as he whipped up pizza and other yummie bites and cooked it over the heat of pallets that he found in the street. now that was a real guerilla bbq if i ever saw one. people talked about city repairs and green dreams for el lay. all in all, it was quite an inspiring night.
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City Repair will be on satellite tv.
Tuesday, January 9, DISH Network will show Episode 92 of "Perils For Pedestrians".
Contents of Episode 92 (2004):
--We drop in on the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC.
--The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a new Active Living by Design program.
--The City Repair Project works at the community level in Portland, Oregon.
--We learn about the rideshare program for Salem, Oregon.
--We talk with a former Salem Mayor about the failure to finance the Sidewalk Construction And Maintenance Program (SCAMP).
DISH Network Channel 9411 -- The Universityhouse Channel
Tuesday -- 9:30 pm Eastern, 6:30 Pacific
Episode 92 is also available on Google Video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2665908390406135101
Note: Public access cable channels are showing different episodes than DISH Network.
Thank you.
John Z Wetmore
www.pedestrians.org
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